CHICAGO | One Bennett Park | 837 FT | 68 FLOORS

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by headcase

WHY? If the point of a forum is to have a discussion someone needs to actually say something, don't they? Some people are just more verbose than others, it happens in writing as well as speech. You don't like it? Don't read it, move on, those of us interested in reading will continue to do so.

I make that statement because I am, in fact, interested in what a lot of forumers have to say. Shorter, less ranty posts make for a much more interesting and serious discussion.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by ardecila

No, read the article. Reilly point-blank called the park "a failure" and said it needed to be replaced. I don't even know if Related was intending to redesign the park before Reilly stuck his tasteless greasy meddling fingers into the project. Developers don't generally go around spending money they don't need to.

I'm torn on MVVA doing the re-design... on the one hand, his team can be undeniably talented and creative, but the firm itself is stuck in Olmsted's shadow. Maggie Daley Park might be nicer than the old Daley Bi, but it looks like a chunk of Central Park or Lincoln Park... we were designing that crap 100 years ago. It's 2014, we can do something fresh and innovative.

Now MVVA is fixing to tear up one of the few nice, fresh modern parks we have downtown, by a world-renowed firm (not just some local hacks) just so the wealthy new residents can get a swingset and a place for their dogs to crap. It's like when Trump ripped out all the nice grasses in his riverfront plaza, except worse - and that plaza had the same original designer as Parkview West! Hargreaves can't get no love around here.

I responded to this comment about park design in the General Developments forum

[BraveNewWorld]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Finally a little sanity

Seriously, some of you are having a meltdown over this, it's absolutely ridiculous. This really isn't that bad, and Stern has done some decent postmodernism.

At 800 ft or so, this will be a nice addition to the skyline

[marothisu]

I think the design is OK. It's obviously not cutting edge or modern, but I am OK with it. I guess I don't see why so many people are so pissed off with it, but the beauty of this type of stuff is that things are subjective.

[Perklol]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

I like the height but not the beige color. Not another beige building

Is this the area with multiple beige colored buildings?

I think this could be a stunning building depending on the materials. A pale beige facade would be wonderful here.

[untitledreality]

You are all bat shit insane. How has this forum devolved into a level of shit commonly witnessed on chicagotribune.com?

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Now MVVA is fixing to tear up one of the few nice, fresh modern parks we have downtown, by a world-renowed firm (not just some local hacks) just so the wealthy new residents can get a swingset and a place for their dogs to crap. It's like when Trump ripped out all the nice grasses in his riverfront plaza, except worse - and that plaza had the same original designer as Parkview West! Hargreaves can't get no love around here.

Exactly. How does Reilly have this kind of power, anyway? (It's a rhetorical question, Mr. Downtown.) The entire make-up of our neighborhoods—built environment, obviously, but also the types of amenities and businesses—is determined by the fraction of the city's residents who therein live. For more insular neighborhoods, the effects don't or don't seem to broadly ripple across the region or even the city; but when you're talking about neighborhoods that are plainly as vital to the people who don't live there as the people who do, you realize what a mess the system is. And so whole swathes of downtown Chicago—the epicenter of a 9.5-million-person-strong metropolis—reflect the tastes and desires of a vocal minority of its residents funneled through some populist mouthpiece with just enough autonomy to allow his own capricious whims or ill-informed beliefs a place in the desecration of the cityscape. It's confounding and infuriating.

[ardecila]

It is the downside of having a 24/7 downtown with many thousands of residents.

These petty complaints didn't hang up downtown development 30 years ago because nobody lived downtown to complain. Now the residents of one building alone can stall two major office development projects.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It is the downside of having a 24/7 downtown with many thousands of residents.

...or the downside of aldermanic privilege.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by rgolch

Look, it's obvious many of you are very knowledgable about architecture and urban planning. But it gets tiresome reading constant negativaty. I feel like Fox news took over the Chicago threads.

Yea IDK what is up with the Chicago boards. This thread is 4 pages of negativity. Your right.
this is like the GOP of SSP. Always nagging and complaining. Too many Glen Becks in this thread.

Be glad Chicago is getting something like this. The city is really not flourishing in developments at the moments like it was pre-2008. At least this isn't designed by Gene Kaufman. Stern has the right idea. This design is classy.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

...or the downside of aldermanic privilege.

Aldermen have entirely too much power, but that's not my point. We used to do big things downtown without much fuss, because nobody had to live with this stuff in their backyard. Just a few days ago we all cheered the addition of several hundred residential units at Block 37, but those are several hundred new people who will be calling Brendan Reilly to bitch about how the neon signs along State are too bright. This is America - we have this expectation of control over our own neighborhoods and we legitimize our fears of change by citing lowered property values, often with no basis in reality.

I don't really see how you avoid this problem. Some cities are able to build bold new areas with dense mixed-use, parks, and transit on the ashes of former industrial districts, and there's nobody around to complain, but Chicago eliminated this option with the creation of PMDs.

[yaletown_fella]

I hope Stern revises this one (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was an intern who churned this one out)

As much as I like pre-war design it seems a bit lazy.

It's not in the same league as 15 CPW and One Saint Thomas

Also 15 CPW isnt "nouveau riche"

[chris08876]

I think the rendering is still preliminary. Once a better ones comes out, minds may be changed. Hopefully a video comes out showing 3d Models. Usually, they give a good indication of the fine details within the architecture.

[vandelay]

These posts are pretty funny and confirm certain stereotypes about Chicago being in the thrall of modern architecture. Mid-century architecture is as historic now as 1930s architecture. Thinking modernism is the be-all and end-all of good taste in architecture shows a certain narrow-minded provincialism. But that's expected where near-sighted, local pride is concerned, and Chicago can claim SOM and Mies as their own.

But from what some of you fanatics write you would think that Chicago is a land of blue blooded, old money aristocrats who live in Mies high rises, and this sort of tower is only suitable for that architectural and cultural backwater New York City. And that Robert Stern should hide in disgrace to that fly-by-night architectural school where he's dean, Yale.

Something is out of step with the world, and it ain't this building.

[chris08876]

Anyways back on topic....

A large rendering: High Quality




http://www.trbimg.com/img-53c83f6b/t...ville-20140717

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by headcase

Oh, and congrats for pulling me out of a two year posting hiatus.

SSDD

Thanks.

Originally Posted by ardecila

Now MVVA is fixing to tear up one of the few nice, fresh modern parks we have downtown, by a world-renowed firm (not just some local hacks) just so the wealthy new residents can get a swingset and a place for their dogs to crap. It's like when Trump ripped out all the nice grasses in his riverfront plaza, except worse - and that plaza had the same original designer as Parkview West! Hargreaves can't get no love around here.

The park thing pisses me off the most, that park is not at all a failure. In fact, it is probably the only place downtown that I have seen people actually engaging in recreation. I see people playing frisbee or other games on the lawn there all the time. Now they are going to replace it with another Victorian sitting room of a garden where you can't play ball because your suit or hoop dress is too heavily starched.

Originally Posted by chris08876

Yea IDK what is up with the Chicago boards. This thread is 4 pages of negativity. Your right.
this is like the GOP of SSP. Always nagging and complaining. Too many Glen Becks in this thread.

Be glad Chicago is getting something like this. The city is really not flourishing in developments at the moments like it was pre-2008. At least this isn't designed by Gene Kaufman. Stern has the right idea. This design is classy.

Lol, yawn. This is Chicago, we are not going to settle for trash just because the city is "not flourishing" which is an entire load of bullshit anyhow. Downtown is adding 3,000+ units a year again and there are probably several thousand additional being added in the neighborhood. More importantly this boom seems much more broad based than the last. I was just down in Pilsen at Punch House last night and it's shocking how clean and hip that area is all of the sudden. Clearly you don't live here or you wouldn't be saying Chicago is not flourishing.

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Also 15 CPW isnt "nouveau riche"

Yes it is, it is occupied almost exclusively by self-made men (and women) who haven't a shred of taste. Buildings like 15 CPW are literally what that word was created to describe. People like Jeff Gordon and Sting mingling with a bunch of "struck it rich" bankers from Wall Street most of whom grew up in the Bronx or immigrated from the Midwest. The building is jammed full of sports stars who no doubt didn't inherit a dime. Same goes with the movie star sect as well. I won't even get into the whole "trashy Russian billionaire" set either...

Originally Posted by vandelay

These posts are pretty funny and confirm certain stereotypes about Chicago being in the thrall of modern architecture. Mid-century architecture is as historic now as 1930s architecture. Thinking modernism is the be-all and end-all of good taste in architecture shows a certain narrow-minded provincialism. But that's expected where near-sighted, local pride is concerned, and Chicago can claim SOM and Mies as their own.

But from what some of you fanatics write you would think that Chicago is a land of blue blooded, old money aristocrats who live in Mies high rises, and this sort of tower is only suitable for that architectural and cultural backwater New York City. And that Robert Stern should hide in disgrace to that fly-by-night architectural school where he's dean, Yale.

Another lol. No one is asking for a Miesian box here though that would be a far more appealing result. We are asking for something other than pomo trash. Make it out of brick, but keep it modern. Make it radical like that Jeanne Gang proposal. But don't make it backwards looking trash like this. I think most people here would rather not see a featureless glass box like the saran wrap garbage that Related shat out across the street, but we just know what happens when you try to go old with pre-cast and it ain't pretty. Just look how heinous the buildings over on the other side of Michigan Ave are after just 10-15 years. The Fordham is constantly being maintained (though that's poured in place) for spider cracks in the concrete. Some of the other buildings are getting no maintenance and just look downright haggard.

There is no appeal in a design like this when it will just look like a housing project in 20 years because it is made of shit materials.

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

There is no appeal in a design like this when it will just look like a housing project in 20 years because it is made of shit materials.

Going off Grand Plaza and Millennium Centre I'd guess said transformation takes less than 20 years.

[thewaterman11]

^Thank you LVDW.

Chicago has never been a city that looks backward for its architecture. This neoclassicist attempt by Stern should thusly get little love from Chicago forumers. With that said, most of us here knew that this was the kind of building we were going to get when Related announced that RAMSA was going to design a building at this site.

Moreover, the more pressing issue here is the lack of quality in building materials and the destruction of a rather successful public space. When will Related start to treat Chicago as a legitimate market and begin to provide a top-tier product? 500 LSD, while most assuredly profitable for Related, was an architectural bore with terrible glass quality; 111 W Wacker was a letdown that was worsened by bad floor plans and corner-cutting. And now they're "raising" architectural standards by bringing in a boring classicist design (which is by no means the worst thing that's happening in Chicago [as some people on the forum may like you to believe], but certainly worth criticism) that will use precast above the second floor. If we're going to have to live with this boring building, can't it at least be built with quality? Is that too much to ask Related? Or will we be subjected to even more schlock that they've been providing the Chicago market, especially if and when they pry the Spire site out of Kelleher's cold, dead hands?

And then there's the park. We'll see what happens to it, but it's just sad that we're going to lose an already successful public space. Perhaps the new design can manage to create a space that caters to dogs as well as families and peace-seekers, but that remains to be seen.

But one compliment: the artist who made the watercolor did a very nice job. The detail on the painting is quite good.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

This is Chicago, we are not going to settle for trash just because the city is "not flourishing" which is an entire load of bullshit anyhow.

111 E Wacker
500 NLSD
AMLI River North
AMLI Lofts
Arkadia
West Loop Gateway @ Marianos
The Madison
RIC
Childrens Streeterville
New City tower

And that is just this cycle. You guys need to slowly get off your high horses.

[wrab]

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

I think this could be a stunning building depending on the materials. A pale beige facade would be wonderful here.

Probably a limestone facade.

EDIT: Kamin says that Stern will probably use precast concrete panels instead of limestone.
Link

With due care, precast can be a handsome cladding material - unfortunately, we've seen some bad iterations recently in Chicago.